EXPOSED: CPS Corruption, Title IV Fraud, and Child Trafficking Pipelines

NOTE: Watch SLAM THE GAVEL PODCAST on YouTube.

By Frankie Pressman with Richard Luthmann and Maryann Petri

Richard Luthmann came out swinging against a family court system he calls a “factory of fraud.” On Maryann Petri’s Slam the Gavel podcast, Luthmann unloaded explosive claims about child welfare agencies turned into rackets.

He even quipped that old-school mobsters did a better job protecting kids than today’s bureaucrats.

“The Outfit kept the neighborhoods tight… made sure none of the crap came in,” Luthmann said of Chicago’s mafia-run adoptions decades ago.

Now, he warns, criminals have infiltrated child services under the guise of government. Title IV-D and IV-E funds – federal money meant for child support and foster care – are the corrupt lifeblood.

“Title IV money is like a trough that’s feeding this entire beast, the CPS beast,” Luthmann seethed. Those funds “turbocharge” perverse incentives to tear families apart for profit.

He and his co-host on The Unknown Podcast, Michael Volpe, have painstakingly detailed how courts and contractors treat foster kids like inventory, shuffling children around to maximize reimbursements.

Luthmann’s most chilling charge: a child sex trafficking pipeline operating through CPS. He cited a FOIA bombshell out of Illinois – 166 foster children missing in 2024, up from 16 the year prior. That 935% spike set off alarm bells.

“I think it’s very clear,” Luthmann declared, “the foster care system… there’s somebody on the inside… aiding and abetting child sex trafficking. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure it out that these children are being used as inventory… as sex devices by perverts.”

Illinois officials under Governor Pritzker have stonewalled, but Luthmann isn’t buying their silence. He notes similar scandals in Georgia, Maryland, and California – every time, insiders were caught feeding kids to predators.

Luthmann discussed activist and Illinois State House candidate Bailey Templeton (herself a former foster youth), who is demanding answers. Templeton’s FOIA crusade (discussed below) forced Illinois DCFS to admit the shocking numbers, and she insists “something very nefarious is happening” if dozens of kids vanish on the state’s watch.

Luthmann agrees, saying CPS has become a trafficking conduit greased by federal dollars. “All this Title IV money” creates a “trough of free money” that “feeds the machine at the expense of the children.”

In other words: follow the money and find the crimes. Luthmann wants the gravy train derailed and the kidnappers in cuffs.

“Sacrificing children to make money is immoral,” as an outraged Louisiana Supreme Court justice recently put it. Luthmann couldn’t agree more.

Luthmann’s Family Court Bombshells: No Mercy for the “Advocate-Fraudsters”

The firebrand journalist didn’t stop at government villains. Luthmann took a scalpel (and blowtorch) to certain supposed family court “advocates,” he says, who are wolves in sheep’s clothing.

Jason Samaritano

“These are bad bullies… they’re career criminals,” he said bluntly. Jason “Jay” Samaritano topped the list.

Luthmann exposed Samaritano as a fraud with a mile-long rap sheet who masqueraded as a court reformer while menacing real victims’ advocates. In New Jersey, a judge branded Samaritano a “repetitive offender” and warned he was “highly likely to reoffend.”

Sure enough, Samaritano was “back in handcuffs – again,” Luthmann smirked, referencing a recent arrest that added yet another felony arrest to his record. The “Fake Crusader” ran a Facebook page called “Exposing Fraudulent People” – a cruel irony, as it turns out. He blasted out 180 posts in 106 days, viciously slandering genuine activists while he was in and out of jail for theft, fraud, and stalking.

Luthmann isn’t impressed by the hypocrisy. He calls him and his wife Erin the “SCAMaritanos … New Jersey’s most notorious Fake Crusaders.”

“He tried to stop good reformers” by any means, Luthmann said, including targeting host Maryann Petri and Family Court Fraud Warrior Dave Weigel (discussed below) with smears.

Now the bully is finally facing consequences.

“Jason Samaritano is a career criminal,” Luthmann spat, “according to Judge D’Arrigo… It is what it is.”

Francesca Amato

Next, Luthmann trained his sights on Francesca Amato, a self-proclaimed advocate pushing what she called the “Family Justice & Accountability Act.” Amato hyped her 94-page proposal as a sweeping reform bill – but Luthmann pulled back the curtain on this sham.

“I’m gonna be as nice as I can… [but] her bill is really… trauma porn. That’s what it is,” he said acidly.

In fact, Amato had no lawmakers sponsoring her plan (Senator Chuck Grassley “has no idea who she is” despite her claims), and she even copyrighted the absurd 94-page manifesto as if it were her personal property.

Luthmann has written extensively debunking Amato’s “Family Justice” act as a fantasy with zero chance of becoming law. Even more damning, he uncovered Amato’s financial deceit: her nonprofit lost its 501(c)(3) status for failing to file tax returns, and in one year she raised $22,000 “and took $20,000 in fees” for herself.

“It’s a hustle,” Luthmann declared flatly. He demanded that Amato explain herself to the community she’s exploiting.

Her response?

Instead of transparency, she lashed out. After Luthmann questioned her grift, Amato outrageously defamed him as a “pedophile.”

“She called me a pedophile… so me and her have a big problem now,” Luthmann told Petri.

False accusations like that are beyond the pale, and Luthmann isn’t letting it slide.

“That’s a false accusation… this is where these false accusations fly out,” Petri remarked in disbelief. Luthmann agreed – and he’s already taking legal action elsewhere against those who sling such filth (more on that soon).

In short, he torched Amato’s credibility: from her phony bill to her pocketing of donations to her libelous attacks. There’s no love lost – Luthmann all but calls her an opportunistic fraud preying on desperate parents.

In his bombastic style, he essentially told these posers: time’s up. Real reform is not their con game or ego trip.

Luthmann’s Family Court Bombshells: Saluting the Real Warriors

While Luthmann has nothing but contempt for grifters, he lavished praise on genuine reformers fighting in the trenches. Bailey Templeton, Jill Jones-Soderman, Julie Holburn, and Dave Wiegel earned his full admiration on the podcast. These journalists, watchdogs, and advocates, Luthmann says, actually get results and face retaliation for it.

Bailey Templeton

Templeton – a young Illinois mother – turned outrage into action when she saw her friend’s children destroyed by family court corruption. Now she’s running for State House to demand answers about CPS failures. It was Templeton’s relentless FOIA digging that blew open the scandal of Illinois’ 166 missing foster kids.

“We had a trend of 1–2–3 kids missing… Not as unheard of as 2024, where there were 166,” Templeton revealed, exposing an unthinkable jump that DCFS couldn’t explain.

When DCFS tried to dispute and downplay the data, Templeton produced the emails to prove they were lying. She smelled a cover-up and publicly warned that the agency might be “cooking the books” or worse.

Rather than shrinking back, Templeton doubled down – calling for independent audits, legislative hearings, and even blasting a proposed law that would shield DCFS from liability in these cases.

Luthmann hails Templeton as exactly the kind of fearless “Mama Bear” the system fears (in the mold of Terry LaPoint). She’s a whistleblower-turned-candidate armed with documents, demanding “find these children” and hold the suits accountable.

In Luthmann’s eyes, Bailey Templeton is the real deal: a reformer with guts, shining sunlight on a nightmare that bureaucrats wanted to keep buried.

Jill Jones Soderman

Luthmann also lauded the tireless Jill Jones-Soderman, founder of the Foundation for Child Victims of the Family Courts (fcvfc.org). Jones-Soderman is a veteran advocate who has spent decades exposing medical fraud, judicial misconduct, and financial malfeasance to save children.

“They’ve unearthed financial records, medical fraud…,” Luthmann said of Jill and her team. For her noble work, she’s faced serious blowback. Luthmann was incensed, describing how police came banging on Jill’s door to intimidate her.

“She’s an elderly woman… she tries to help people… and the cops are knocking on her door,” he recounted, calling it pure harassment. “It’s a disgrace, it really is,” Luthmann fumed.

He noted this abusive tactic is meant to send a message: “Don’t get too close, don’t derail our gravy train.” But Jill Jones-Soderman won’t be cowed. “Jill’s been doing some great stuff,” Luthmann said, highlighting how she’s “fighting tooth and nail” for families in crisis.

For example, Jill is championing the case of Taci Belisle, a deaf mega-influencer mother of three who’s in a living hell thanks to corrupt courts. Belisle’s ex-husband is a convicted kidnapper and violent felon, yet a family court “circus” in Washington State and Ohio conspired to strip Taci of her children.

Her youngest son, Ryder, is terminally ill with a rare dementia. Still, Summit County, Ohio judges have yo-yoed jurisdiction and effectively handed the boy to the abusive father out of spite.

“If it can happen to me, it can happen to you,” Taci warns others, fighting to keep her child safe from a system “gone mad.”

Luthmann is outraged by Taci’s plight – it encapsulates everything wrong in family court. Good mothers punished, felons enabled, children harmed.

But thanks to warriors like Jones-Soderman, Belisle is fighting back and drawing national attention. Luthmann holds up Jill and Taci’s story as proof that real advocates fight for solutions, not selfies.

It’s dangerous work, but heroes press on.

Julie Anderson Holburn

Julie Anderson Holburn earned Luthmann’s high praise as a truth-teller with a target on her back. Holburn is a California journalist whose hard-hitting reports on family court corruption in Orange County have rattled the powers that be.

“Nobody shines a light like Julie,” Luthmann suggested, noting her investigative coverage has triggered an unprecedented backlash.

In one ongoing judicial scandal, Orange County Judge Kimberly Carasso blew a gasket over Holburn’s articles and then refused to recuse herself from Holburn’s own custody case. Holburn’s motion to disqualify exposed that Judge Carasso lied under oath, claiming not to know Holburn while transcripts proved the judge had railed about Holburn’s reporting in open court.

It’s a bombshell bias case now drawing calls for DOJ intervention. Luthmann cites Holburn as a prime example of the system attacking those who expose it.

“The second you expose corruption, they target you,” he warned.

Julie Holburn’s fearless journalism so unnerved the Orange County court cabal that they’re bending rules to retaliate against her. But Holburn, like Luthmann, won’t be silenced. She continues to report, and her work has ignited a public uproar over secretive, abusive family courts.

Luthmann cheered Holburn’s courage and underscored her importance: when media shines light, the cockroaches scatter.

Dave Weigel

Dave Weigel is a fearless truth-teller on the front lines of family court reform. He built the Family Court Fraud Warrior Project, a 501(c)(3) watchdog nonprofit, and organized an army of court watchers, thousands strong, starting across multiple states – from Connecticut and New York to New Jersey and Maryland, and now extending across the country– to shine light on the secretive family courts.

Weigel’s relentless honesty has earned him powerful enemies.

Recently, he blew the whistle on the above-mentioned “Bonnie and Clyde” grifter duo – Jason and Erin Samaritano. They were running a phony family court advocacy scam

The criminals struck back hard. Jason’s rap sheet was “literally a mile long.” Yet instead of slinking away, this crooked pair concocted a bogus harassment charge in Mount Laurel, New Jersey Municipal Court to try to silence Weigel. All because he dared to tell the truth about their scam.

Luthmann doesn’t mince words about these attackers, calling them “criminal bullies” and pointing out that a New Jersey judge declared Jason a “career criminal.”

“Dave was in municipal court yesterday and there were an unprecedednted 200 court watchers,” Luthmann said. “The judge punted and adjourned. I predict the case will disappear before we report how a certain judical officer signed a warrant based on the word of a career criminal over the word of a Wall Street fiduciary asset manager.”

Luthmann says that its bad police work if a warrant got to a judge’s desk and the local cops didn’t run background.

“It’s either gross negligence, like if the judge didn’t read – or corruption, like if Samaritano’s son just joined the police force, hypothetically speaking,” Luthmann said. “We’ll dig if there’s something to dig around.”

And it’s not just felons gunning for Weigel.

In Kingston, New York, a rogue Family Court judge – Judge Jacqueline Ricciani – tried to muzzle him with an outrageous blanket ban barring him from even setting foot in the courthouse. That illegal order blatantly violates the First Amendment and New York’s Family Court Act – an unconstitutional prior restraint on a citizen court watcher.

They can try to smear him and ban him, but Dave Weigel won’t back down. That’s truth-telling under fire.

In Luthmann’s view, Weigel, Holburn, Jones-Soderman, and Templeton represent some of the best of the movement – people with integrity, tenacity, and a willingness to brave the fire. These are the allies he celebrates, as opposed to the phonies he excoriates.

“Real reformers have battle scars and receipts, not fake bills and Facebook scams,” Luthmann said. “Support the doers, expose the grifters.”

Luthmann’s Family Court Bombshells: “Cancel Culture Scumbag” Revenge and War on Crooked Prosecutors

It wouldn’t be Richard Luthmann if he didn’t also dish out unfiltered invective towards those who have personally tried to cancel or muzzle him. He gave listeners an update on his own wars against media hitmen and corrupt officials.

Danesh Noshirvan

Top of the list is a TikTok vigilante Luthmann dubbed the “cancel culture scumbag.” He’s referring to Danesh Noshirvan, the notorious social media and U.S. Supreme Court doxxer who harasses people under the guise of “accountability.”

Luthmann described Noshirvan as “an Antifa-linked internet terrorist” who deploys AI bot swarms to simulate outrage and destroy targets’ lives.

“He picks a person… and then he goes after them,” Luthmann explained.

Noshirvan’s 3-million-strong (many fake) army will inundate a victim’s phone, employer, and family with spam and threats until the poor soul is fired and ruined.

“They attack the person… and a lot of these people get fired,” Luthmann said of the playbook.

And if a target has money, Noshirvan tries to sue them for sport. The TikTok tyrant has boasted ties to far-left extremist circles and foreign funding, Luthmann noted, accusing him of being a tool for dark agendas.

“He attacks white people, and he attacks families. He attacks traditional values… If you’re MAGA, he attacks and then he tries to sue you,” Luthmann vented, calling out the pattern.

This online bully even targeted Luthmann himself with vile slanders – mirroring Amato’s smear – by labeling Luthmann a “pedophile” and “child stalker” on TikTok.

That was the last straw. Lawsuit time.

“I’m suing the shit out of him in federal court,” Luthmann announced unapologetically.

He has filed a defamation suit in the Middle District of Florida to hold Noshirvan accountable for his lies. Luthmann refuses to let a “cancel culture” hitman hide behind a screen and ruin lives with impunity.

By dragging Danesh Noshirvan into court, Luthmann aims to turn the tables: expose the exposer, cancel the canceler. It’s a First Amendment showdown – and Luthmann sounds confident. After all, truth and evidence are on his side.

“You can’t go around and facelessly call somebody [that],” he said of the pedophile smear, vowing to make the TikTok terror pay for his libel.

Michael E. McMahon

Luthmann’s battles aren’t only online – they’re in the halls of justice too, where he’s faced down crooked prosecutors who abuse their power. In a segment that truly had listeners gasping, Luthmann described his run-in with a politically motivated District Attorney in New York City.

“I got a scumbag prosecutor up in New York City called Michael McMahon,” Luthmann revealed. McMahon is the Staten Island DA, and according to Luthmann, he conspired with a millionaire real estate developer (a crony married to a NYC Councilwoman Kamillah Hanks), Democrat Party officials, and others to shut Luthmann up.

The developer, Kevin Barry Love, didn’t like Luthmann’s Substack journalism exposing his atatcks on Muslims. For McMahon, one article by Dr. Bandy Lee exposing corruption in New Jersey struck too close to home for Love, McMahon, and their friends.

In an outrageous move, DA McMahon had his NYPD buddies issue an “I-Card” (investigation card) to arrest Luthmann on sight – essentially treating a journalist like a violent felon – over an emailed newsletter.

The kicker?

“The email… wasn’t sent by me. It was sent by Substack,” Luthmann explained incredulously.

The content was written by someone else entirely, yet McMahon cooked up a bogus criminal harassment charge against Luthmann to please his powerful pal. This banana-republic tactic is now the subject of legal scrutiny.

Luthmann recounted how McMahon’s “corrupt… machine” tried to silence him and how even McMahon’s judge wife bristled at Luthmann’s reporting. But Luthmann is fighting back hard, exposing the collusion and speaking publicly about the abuse.

“You get into this stuff long enough… they try to silence and destroy,” he said, noting that he’s far from the only one.

Paul Boyne

Luthmann also talked about a fellow journalist who believes the family court “overlords” are trying to “rub him out.” In Connecticut, blogger Paul Boyne faces criminal trial 18 absurd felony charges simply for writing scathing blog posts about judges.

“A sixty-four-year-old father accused of ‘stalking’ judges with nothing more than words from seven states away,” Luthmann scoffed, summarizing Boyne’s case. “But they are trying to kill him. Institutional homicide and reverse racism are on full display.”

Connecticut authorities illegally raided Boyne’s out-of-state home, jailed him for 17 months and 27 days, slapped an ankle monitor on him in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and even sealed the case from public view.

They threw the book at him – 18 counts – for the so-called “Hateful Eight” blog entries.

“Stolen evidence, gag orders, judges looking the other way,” Luthmann said, painting the picture of a full-on First Amendment nightmare.

But now, he noted, “the entire prosecution is collapsing under the weight of its constitutional rot.”

Boyne’s case, like Luthmann’s, shows how far corrupt officials will go to muzzle critics – and how spectacularly they can fail when confronted.

Luthmann’s Family Court Bombshells: Takeaway

Despite all these attacks, Richard Luthmann remains unbowed and unfiltered. He has survived cancel culture hit jobs, bogus prosecutions, and defamatory slander, and he’s fighting on every front – pen, podcast, and courtroom.

His attitude throughout the Slam the Gavel interview was equal parts righteous fury and defiant optimism. Luthmann believes a reckoning is coming.

From family courts to CPS agencies to online smear merchants, he insists the corrupt players are being exposed one by one.

“Nobody believes the abyss until they fall in,” he said, describing how average people are waking up to the family court nightmare only after getting burned.

Now, thanks to fearless voices and mounting evidence, the public is catching on. Luthmann encourages everyone to shine sunlight and support those on the front lines.

He plugs his Substack “This is For Real” and his Linktree. He urges viewers to send tips, because he’s always ready to pounce on the next story. His closing message on the podcast doubled as a battle cry.

“This fight isn’t going away. We’re just getting started,” Luthmann said.

If the system thought Richard Luthmann was going to shut up or go away, they’ve gravely miscalculated. He’s been bloodied but is back in the ring, swinging harder than ever. A self-described lover of “God, America, and Donald John Trump,” he’s on a mission to topple “runaway cabals” and “factories of fraud” wherever they fester.

Boom.

The gauntlet is thrown. And as Luthmann would say, sunshine is the best disinfectant – or shut it down.